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Thursday, March 21, 2013

The House of Wood by Anthony Price

Look for Anthony Price's debut The House of Wood, out April 5th, 2013! The Cavanaugh Connection will also have an interview with Anthony on April 13th to celebrate the release!

But for now, check out a quick little synopsis and excerpt ofThe House of Wood!

Synopsis

IT SITS OUT THERE ON THE HILLTOP. Dark. Foreboding. The locals steer clear of it. The House of Wood. Rachel James, a college student in her third year at The University of Maine, knows the house all too well.

When she receives a phone call informing her that her parents have died in a house fire, she must return to her hometown. Rachel is forced to confront her biggest fear when she discovers the house of wood has been rebuilt in the last three years. But it’s not until she accepts a dinner date with the mysterious Dr. David Cochrane that things take a turn for the worse, as now she must recount the story of what happened at the house three years earlier.

Past and present collide in a haunting tale of friendship, betrayal and fear. The House of Wood is a story within a story, one that asks two questions:

What happens when a house sees so much horror it becomes evil incarnate?

And can a person ever really escape their past?

The answers are waiting for you..

House of Wood Excerpt

Her
steps were slow.Her breathing shallower
than it had been before.The constant
drumbeat of blood in her ears was like a marching song, edging her ever closer.She lowered her umbrella and grasped at her
hands in an attempt to stop them shaking.This is a bad idea, she thought, still moving forwards, never
stopping.Her mind screamed at her to
turn back, to go into town and forget about this stupid need that had pounced
on her during the fluid waking moments of the dawn.There was some glimmer of false hope buried
deep down inside her, pushing her on.Maybe she had made a mistake?Maybe it was just a similar looking place?This was a small town; a lot of the buildings
looked the same, especially the farmhouses.Over and over again she tried to convince herself that she had been
wrong.Nobody would ever want to rebuild
that thing.And houses couldn't just
rebuild themselves.Could they?

Looking up, she realised she had
already reached the top of the hill.The
air stuck in her throat like a piece of hard food, as she inhaled sharply.

It
was there.The house of wood, renovated
to its former glory.Gone was the flaky
paint and rotten wood of the porch, replaced by a bright white coat stretching
along its walls.The wooden steps
leading up to the front door were now perfectly square wooden planks, rather
than rough, crooked teeth.The windows
were no longer encrusted with years of dirt and grime.It was all a façade.Still they looked out over the countryside
like malevolent eyes, dark and dreary, as if it was watching for something,
waiting like a coiled cobra for a time when it could strike again.The long shadow cast over her felt frigid and
desolate.No amount of cleaning, or
decorating, could remove the unwholesome stain that the building had left on
the surrounding area.On her own psyche.

This
is ridiculous, she thought.The house
hadn't done anything to her, it had been him.The house itself was just a building, an
inanimate object that couldn’t do anything except look creepy.So why did she feel such hatred towards
it?The dolls, she thought.Nothing could explain the dolls...